Excess Cost Reports - Changes and Guidance

IDEA 2004 Appendix A to Part 300 - Excess Costs Calculation

Except as otherwise provided, amounts provided to an LEA under Part B of the Act may be used only to pay the excess costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities. Excess costs are those costs for the education of an elementary school or secondary school student with a disability that are in excess of the average annual per student expenditure in an LEA during the preceding school year for an elementary school or secondary school student, as may be appropriate. An LEA must spend at least the average annual per student expenditure on the education of an elementary school or secondary school child with a disability before funds under Part B of the Act are used to pay the excess costs of providing special education and related services.

Section 602(8) of the Act and Sec. 300.16 require the LEA to compute the minimum average amount separately for children with disabilities in its elementary schools and for children with disabilities in its secondary schools. LEAs may not compute the minimum average amount it must spend on the education of children with disabilities based on a combination of the enrollments in its elementary schools and secondary schools. Funds under Part B of the Act may be used only for costs over and above this minimum.

The Ohio Department of Education, in conjunction with the State Auditor's office, updated certain special education instruction-related Uniform School Accounting System (USAS) function codes to meet the regulation above. Some function codes were eliminated and a new set of codes that differentiate between instruction for elementary (Kindergarten through grade 6) and secondary (grades 7-12) levels were implemented July 1, 2009. The Office for Exceptional Children has received questions regarding situations in which teachers provide instruction to children with disabilities with varied conditions in one classroom. The following guidance is offered to address the situations in which this applies:

Coding for disability – In either grades K-6 or 7-12, if there are children in the classroom with varied disability conditions, the teacher’s salary code should reflect the disability condition of the majority of the children.

Coding for grade level – If there are children with varied disability conditions in the classroom, and the classroom spans both the elementary and secondary categories above (for example, grades 6-8), the teacher’s salary code should be prorated to reflect the grade level for the majority of the students in the class.

Excess Cost Reports:

The reports posted in Section A dated from 2004-2011 are in a format which calculates the districts' general revenue funds (GRF), which are state and local expenditures for all special education grade levels and related services. ODE has since updated the calculation in order to comply with the federal regulation shared above.